Saturday, 26 December 2015

In Memoriam: September 2015

Actor who was the human star of The Love Bug, the Disney film that launched Herbie the car.

2nd September 2015 – Tessa Ransford, 77

Poet and founder of the Scottish Poetry Library.

“The idea of the library came to Ransford as the result of a conversation with the expatriate American poet Larry Butler. She went on to gather a group of like-minded people including Angus Calder, Joy Hendry and Billy Wolfe; I came on board as the first librarian. These were heady years, with grants from the Scottish Arts Council and the Gulbenkian Foundation but with no prospect of long-term survival for the library. Ransford, as director, shared a salary with me, and we were backed up by voluntary helpers whose experience in the library – we hoped – would serve them well on their future paths. Taking our cue from lines of MacDiarmid – “If there is ocht in Scotland that’s worth hae’n / There is nae distance to which it’s unattached” – we sought to combine that poet’s ideation with popular appeal, to build a thoroughly Scottish collection together with extensive international stock, and with an awareness that poetry connected with the other arts and with life itself. In 1997, the library moved from its cramped quarters in Tweeddale Court to a new building, designed by the architect Malcolm Fraser, and located further down the Royal Mile. In due course it would acquire a neighbour in the form of the Scottish Parliament.”Tom Hubbard, Herald obit

2nd September 2015 – Ephraim Engleman, 104

One of the oldest practicing doctors in the world.

3rd September 2015 – Sir Adrian Cadbury, 86

Former chairman of Cadburys. He was knighted in 2015.

4th September 2015 – Rico Rodriguez, 80

Trombonist who was a member of The Specials.

4th September 2015 – Warren Murphy, 81

Screen writer who wrote The Eiger Sanction, and Lethal Weapon II.

6th September 2015 – Ralph Milne, 54

Scottish footballer who played for Dundee United. He won the Scottish league title with Dundee United in 1983, and the League Cup in 1979, but was twice runner up in the Scottish Cup. A later run at Charlton Athletic saw him in the team that won the 2nd Division playoff final in 1987. Jim McLean, the legendary Dundee United manager of the time, later wrote that, given the dovetailing of Milne’s career, he was his greatest regret in football.

“If I had an outstanding failure then it was Ralph Milne. He should have been playing in World Cups. He should have won a bundle of Scotland international honours. It was a tragedy that that boy was not playing for his country all the time. He had tremendous talent – and I failed with him. He did not have the right attitude to the game and I could not instil that into him."Jim McLean, Jousting with Giants, published 1987

Alex Ferguson signed him for Manchester United in 1988, hoping to spark the then 27 year old back into life, but nothing of note happened.

8th September 2015 – Ebby Halliday, 104

Famed US realtor.

14th September 2015 – Duncan Brown, 74

BAFTA winning lighting director who worked on A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Doctor Who (Genesis of the Daleks) and When the Boat Comes in.

18th September 2015 – Dettmar Cramer, 90

Football manager who was manager of Bayern Munich when they won the 1975 and 1976 European Cups.

“In 1974 Cramer assisted West Germany's coach, Helmut Schoen, when the host nation beating the Netherlands in the World Cup final in Munich. The following spring he was in charge of Bayern Munich when a team led by Franz Beckenbauer (who dubbed him "the Football Professor") retained the European Cup by defeating Leeds United in a controversial Paris final. Despite guiding Bayern to a third consecutive final success, against St-Etienne in 1976, Cramer was ousted. "I told the president we needed some changes," he later recounted. "'That's right,' he replied, 'you're fired'."”Phil Shaw, Independent obit

18th September 2015 – Eduardo Bonvallet, 60

Chilean footballer who played for his national team at the 1982 World Cup.

18th September 2015 – William E Paul, 79

Immunologist and AIDS researcher.

[Paul] assumed perhaps his most public role in 1994, when he was named director of the NIH Office of AIDS Research. Before his appointment, the director had only limited budgetary authority, leading some HIV/AIDS activists to complain that the federal response to the disease had been poorly coordinated and ultimately unfruitful. In an effort to eliminate redundancy and focus resources effectively, Dr. Paul was granted broad authority to determine how the government would deploy its $1.3 billion allocated for research on HIV/AIDS. “A turning point has been reached. Simple continuation of the policies of the past is likely to bring us only slow, fitful progress,” he wrote in the journal Science in 1995. During nearly four years as director, Dr. Paul refocused federal efforts to favor basic research over clinical trials and individual scientists over government commissions. He also helped establish the NIH Vaccine Research Center, whose primary focus is the search for vaccines for AIDS.”Emily Langer, Washington Post

“As chief of the Laboratory of Immunology since 1970, Dr. Paul made numerous seminal discoveries, including groundbreaking work on T cell and cytokine biology that clarified the central roles of these cells and their products in immunity and disease. During his leadership of the NIH Office of AIDS Research from 1994 to 1997, he led development of the first comprehensive plan and a unified budget for all NIH-sponsored AIDS scientific activities. He also served in the U.S. Public Health Service, achieving the rank of rear admiral. Dr. Paul mentored numerous researchers during his long research career, many of whom went on to become leaders in their fields as independent investigators. “Bill was a giant in the field of immunology, and a respected and beloved member of the NIH community,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “He was a wonderful colleague and friend to me and to so many of us here at NIH and throughout the global immunology community. We have lost a research icon, and he will be sorely missed.””NIH bulletin, NIH Mourns William E. Paul, Pioneering Immunologist and Laboratory Chief 22 September 2015

19th September 2015 – Jackie Collins, 77

Romantic novelist.

19th September 2015 – Brian Sewell, 84

Famously acerbic art critic.

“He first came before the public as the loyal friend of Anthony Blunt when that traitor was publicly exposed in 1979; his celebrity, however, began when he was appointed art critic of the Evening Standard in 1984. In that role, Sewell waged witty, unwavering and vitriolic battle against what he what he regarded as the posturing inanities of modern British conceptual art. His readers were at once amazed and gratified to discover that this seemingly effete highbrow, whose outrageously camp voice (“Lady Bracknell on acid”) they knew from radio and television, should reflect all their own prejudices. Those inclined to scepticism over the artistic potential of formaldehyde rejoiced to find that Sewell thought Damien Hirst (whom he had initially admired) had degenerated into “a fairground barker, whipping us to wonder at his freaks”. Those who recoiled from the scabrousness of Gilbert and George were delighted to read of “the sheer vanity of this Tweedle-Dum and Dee”, which “must repel even those who want to like their work, or at least admire their ingenuity”.”Telegraph obit

20th September 2015 – Dorothy Butler, 90

Children's novelist known for her My Brown Bear Barney series of books.

22nd September 2015 – Ben Cauley, 67

Member of the Bar-Kays, and sole survivor of the plane crash which killed most of the band and Otis Redding.

22nd September 2015 – Yogi Berra, 90

American baseball player and manager who won thirteen World Series. He was known for a style of phrasing affectionately known as Yogi-isms. Examples include:

“It ain’t over till it’s over.”

“Always go to other people’s funerals, else they wont go to yours.”

“It’s déjà vu all over again!”

27th September 2015 – Pietro Ingrao, 100

Italian anti-fascist activist during World War II, who later became an Italian politician, and became a leading communist in parliament.

27th September 2015 – John Guillermin, 89

Director of The Towering Inferno, Death on the Nile, and the 1976 remake of King Kong.

“Known as a perfectionist, sometimes irascible and temperamental film-maker who was replaced on both the 1976 Charlton Heston second world war Pacific drama Battle of Midway and the 1983 Brooke Shields adventure drama Sahara, Guillermin worked with Hollywood stars such as John Mills (I Was Monty’s Double, 1958), Peter Sellers (Never Let Go, 1960, and Waltz of the Toreadors, 1962), Richard Attenborough (Guns at Batasi, 1964) and George Peppard (war movie The Blue Max, 1966). The Cambridge graduate directed a dozen British films before he was 35, beginning with the 1949 comedy High Jinks in Society. His career as a Hollywood director stretched from 1958 film noir The Whole Truth, which starred Max Poulton as a movie producer framed for the murder of his promiscuous leading lady, to the 1986 fantasy sequel King Kong Lives, a critical and box-office turkey that led to the film-maker moving into television films.”Ben Child, Guardian obit

28th September 2015 – Ignacio Zoco, 76

Footballer who played for Real Madrid and won the 1966 European Cup with them, and the 1964 European Championships with Spain.

28th September 2015 – Alexander Faris, 94

Composer responsible for the theme tune to Upstairs, Downstairs.

28th September 2015 – Catherine Coulson, 71

American actress best known for her role as the Log Lady in Twin Peaks.

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Michael S Collins

The camera didn't quite break for this one...

Welcome from a Writer

It's suggested by Blogger that a friendly message is most welcome at this juncture, so Hi!

I'm Michael S. Collins, writer and editor. I write. Fiction. Short humour. Longer stories. Plays. Articles, and not all of them on Doctor Who either. Always try to branch out and add to the craft, I guess. I edited The Christmas Book of Ghosts, and am in charge of The40p. Sometimes I even remember to update this blog!

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